by John G Thomas

Created on: April 22, 2009

Creating believable characters is the most important step in writing a novel or short story. Vivid, life like characters will drive the plot onwards and keep the reader turning the page as they become attached to the characters and start to feel emotions towards them. Whether this is positive emotion toward a character they are meant to like or negative emotions toward a character is up to you.

For example, In J K Rowlings Harry Potter books, the reader cares about Harry Potter and his friends and wants them to win, whereas the reader learns to feel negative emotions towards Lord Voldemort and the Death eaters. This is all achieved by the way that J K Rowling created believable multidimensional characters that the reader can empathise with.

When creating a character from scratch, it is important to remember that just like people in the real world, characters need to be multidimensional. The two dimensions that an author needs to focus on are the inner dimension and the outer dimension. The inner dimension of a character deals with the characters thoughts and internal qualities. The characters internal qualities will be the characters thoughts, emotions and attitudes. This is where the writer allows the reader to get inside the head of the character to understand them and to possibly understand their motives.

The outer dimension of a character deals with the characters external features. The body language and the way the character acts will make up the external features.

For example,

'His eyes burned red with rage. They bulged from his head like red-hot pokers. As he screamed his mouth gaped open in wide snarling defiance, like a rabid dog preparing to strike. His mind raced with thoughts of anger and a deep sadness that he could no longer bare.'

The passage above includes both the inner and outer dimensions of the character. The start of the passage describes some of the external features, such as the characters eyes and the end of the passage deals with the inner dimension of emotions that the character is feeling.

Creating multidimensional characters will help the reader to empathise with the character and to form a love or hate relationship with them; such as was mentioned in paragraph two about the relationships between the reader and the good and bad characters in Harry potter.

The example passage shows how using the inner and outer dimensions can help the reader to empathise with the character. At first the character may sound repulsive with his eyes burning with rage and the outer imagery of a rabid dog. However the reader then becomes aware of the characters deeper inner emotions and realises that the character is angry and also harbours a deep sadness. Emotions are something that all readers can relate too and have experienced themselves, bringing the reader and character closer together.

Creating Multidimensional characters is key to writing a great story and it is also great fun experimenting with the two combinations to create some exciting and vibrant characters.

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